Cobot VS Robot: Real World Use Cases

Robotic arms and cobotic arms serve two separate but crucial roles in the manufacturing and automation fields. While they both perform automated, repetitious tasks set by a technician or engineer, robots generally have fewer built-in safeguards. Because of this, robotic arms are generally meant to work separately from humans. Alternatively, collaborative robots (cobots) have offer numerous safety features that allow them to work alongside people. These cobots help to perform repetitive motion tasks or lift heavy objects, which help to increase efficiency and alleviate physical or repetitive stress injuries to workers. Aiding in manufacturing, robotic arms are generally seen performing heavier, large-scale assembly, welding, and painting tasks while cobotic arms are often implemented in lighter assembly, packaging, and quality control.

ORA Features & Specs: What’s Included

Standing just over two feet–or nearly three quarters of a meter tall, fully extended–ORA has a reach radius of 17.3 inches, or 440 mm. Equipped with either a finger or vacuum gripper, ORA is capable of picking up, moving, and manipulating objects around it. With six independently controllable axes, students can program ORA to operate in nearly any position to accomplish whatever task or challenge they encounter. Thanks to its plug and play design, ORA is easy to set up with its included power supply, emergency stop, and mounting hardware. Out of the box, students learn the basics of ORA’s movement and coordinate planes by moving the included cylinder blocks or Evo robots around the ORA Coordinate Mat. 

Expanded Learning Opportunitites

One of the foremost features that students will learn as they progress through learning and working with ORA is structured concurrency. Built into the ORA Editor, a familiar block coding workspace, structured concurrency allows students to create complex systems, programming both ORA and Evo to complete separate tasks within the same code. This expands the learning opportunities and challenges for students working with ORA while encouraging collaborative projects between students in a variety of programming skill levels. Through our ever-growing 3D CAD Library, we provide students with a host of free ORA print accessories.

ORA Curriculum 

ORA’s set up and connection processes are simple and straightforward thanks to the Editor. Built upon our existing Ozobot Blockly coding language, the Editor allows students both new and experienced with coding an easy entry into cobot programming. In addition to Blockly coding, Editor also supports coding in Python. With the support of workspace sharing, teachers can host multiple students, both in-person and remote, allowing each student to code on their own device, while still having access to ORA hardware to test their programs. And with its robust CTE-focused coding curriculum, students will build foundational skills, from the basic understanding of coordinate planes and robotics concepts, to advanced programming with conditional coding and ladder logic. 

ORA: A Cobot Ready for Your Lab

Implementing ORA into your STEAM lab, high school, or trade school is a powerful and exciting way to prepare students for the careers and technologies of the future. And with its compatibility to educational technologies including 3D printing and laser cutting, students can expand their engineering skills by creating their own work holding and material manipulation accessories. 

Available for purchase, ORA is an essential tool for creating future-ready engineers ready for factory operations, assembly lines, and automated manufacturing processes.

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ESSER funds, provided through the CARES Act, were designed to help K-12 schools address the impact of COVID-19. If you have worked with students in any capacity since the pandemic, you understand why such a substantial amount of money was set aside to address learning loss. The deadline to obligate ESSER III funds is September 30, 2024, with a liquidation period extending to March 2026 if an extension is granted by the U.S. Department of Education​. 

Purchases of Ozobot products align with several permissible uses of ESSER funds. Here are some to consider: 

1. Addressing Learning Loss

• High-Dosage Tutoring: Ozobot can be used in one-on-one or small group settings to provide personalized, engaging tutoring sessions in STEM subjects. Our free lesson library contains hundreds of Ozobot lessons aligned to computer science standards, coding activities for elementary students, and engaging Ozobot lessons for middle and high school students. 

2. Supporting Underserved Students

• Equity-Focused Programs: Ozobot can be integrated into programs aimed at closing the achievement gap for underserved students, one of the core objectives of ESSER III funds.  The interactive and adaptive nature of Ozobot can engage students from diverse backgrounds and with different learning needs, including English learners and students with disabilities​. 

3. Enhancing Educational Technology

• Technology Infrastructure: One of the greatest inequities the pandemic both highlighted and exacerbated was the digital divide, where many students lacked access to and proficiency with essential technology. Thus, a key focus for many schools since 2020 has been investing in digital learning platforms and tools that support remote and hybrid learning environments. Ozobot provides a platform for coding and robotics education that is accessible to all students, regardless of their experience with technology, coding, or robotics. Our Pacing Guides provide an intentional, scaffolded approach that sequences skill development starting in Kindergarten. 

4. Professional Development

• Teacher Training: Ozobot’s education team is comprised entirely of former teachers, so we know what teachers want and need from professional learning experiences. Our computer science PD sessions focus on integrating robotics and coding into core curriculum and/or directly teaching standards-aligned CS skills. Our goal is to make sure your Ozobots get off the shelves and into students’ hands, and we know that starts with equipping teachers with awareness of what these bots are capable of.  We offer both in-person and virtual, synchronous sessions that can accommodate any number of attendees, whether large or small. Additionally, our self-service PD platform provides the unique opportunity for asynchronous professional learning that the pandemic caused so many educators to love.
  
  
• Capacity Building: By training staff how to use Ozobot, schools can build long-term capacity for innovative STEM education. Our train-the-trainer sessions equip teacher leaders and school administrators with the tools they need to spread best practices with not only Ozobot specifically but robotics and coding instruction more broadly. 

5. Summer Learning and After-School Programs

• Extended Learning Time: Ozobot is used across the world in summer camps, after school programs, libraries and more. Leverage our After-School and Summer Camp Guides as a resource and documentation for specific lessons and strategies to provide interactive educational activities outside the regular school hours. 

There are clearly a myriad of ways Ozobot can support you in addressing the specific challenges facing you and your students as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, some of our products truly stand out when it comes to alignment with the goals of ESSER III funding: 

Evo Classroom Kit

By far, Ozobot’s most beloved product is Evo, and we know why. It is versatile, engaging, user-friendly, and extremely high-value. If you haven’t made the jump to purchasing a Classroom Kit, this is an ideal way to leverage ESSER fundings for all the reasons mentioned above. 

Color Code Magnets

Our color code magnets are the ideal way to offer scaffolded support for coding and robotics and support underserved students in the conceptual knowledge of coding. The color code magnets enable students to experiment with sequencing, logic, and problem-solving skills with appropriately-sized and easy to manipulate magnetic tiles. You should  start with our Base Kit and can easily add on the Speed and Special Moves add-ons for only $10 more each. 

Challenge Mats

When we take Ozobot on the road to trade shows across the country, visitors to our booth often ask where and how they can purchase the beautiful mats we display and run Evo color code programs on. And that is how we came up with the idea for Challenge Mats – Ozobot’s newest product that provides an immersive, hands-on experience for students in Ozobot Blockly. Our premium mats come in four contexts to choose from  Mission to Mars, Soccer, Basketball, and Ocean (and yes, you can buy all four if you can’t choose just one – and we don’t blame you!). These mats are ideal for high-dosage tutoring sessions, after school programs, and summer camps because they offer unlimited opportunities for play, experimentation, engagement and learning with block-based coding. 

By incorporating Ozobot’s innovative products like our Evo classroom packs, Magnet Kits, and Challenge Mats, schools can make the most of ESSER funding to create engaging and effective learning environments. To learn more about Ozobot’s alignment with ESSER funding, visit our website or schedule some 1:1 time with a member of our Education or Sales team today! 

The post ESSER Funding Ends Soon: Here’s What To Do Next appeared first on Ozobot.

For that reason, we have created our self-service professional development platform,  so teachers can obtain the critical computer science development they are looking for at a time and place that works for them. This hub for professional learning will provide an array of courses tailored to educators and partners alike. It is ideal for anyone seeking to broaden their comprehension of coding, encompassing both the conceptual framework and the practical steps required to seamlessly incorporate Ozobot into their daily classroom routines. And the best part? Teachers can access the learning when they are in the head space to do so. 

Our platform offers an asynchronous learning experience coupled with immediate access to Ozobot’s wealth of educational materials. It allows schools the flexibility to introduce our products to teachers at any time throughout the year, eliminating the need to coordinate schedules for in-person or group sessions. 

Ozobot’s self-service platform launches today with three courses: 

1. Creative Coding with Ozobot Color Codes
   This comprehensive course is designed for educators seeking to integrate Ozobot Color Codes into their classrooms to enhance learning and introduce young students to the basics of programming and computational thinking (CT). Through a series of interactive modules, participants will explore the fundamentals of Ozobot Color Codes, delve into creative problem-solving and storytelling, and learn how to effectively integrate these tools across various subjects to support curriculum standards.
   
2. Ozobot Blockly Essentials
   A course designed to equip educators with the tools and insights necessary to bring coding to life in the classroom. Through engaging modules and practical application, this course lays the foundation for integrating programming across various subjects, empowering students to explore, innovate, and solve real-world problems.  
   
3. Innovating with Ozobot Blockly
   A comprehensive journey into the world of advanced coding techniques and the transformative potential of Ozobot in the classroom. This course is designed for educators ready to take their skills to the next level, offering an in-depth exploration of advanced programming concepts such as conditional logic, variables, functions, and sensor integration. Through a combination of theoretical understanding and hands-on practice, participants will learn to harness the full power of Ozobot Blockly, enabling them to create dynamic and interactive learning experiences that inspire and engage students.

We are so excited to meet the needs of our teachers because we know it means incredible things for students. If you are still looking for that special touch live or in-person professional development provides, check out our other PD offerings!

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Let’s dive into what’s in store with Ozobot’s Student Portfolios and Teacher Guides. These gems provide a step-by-step introduction to programming that lays a solid foundation for using Ozobot effectively in your classroom and increasing classroom engagement. The sequence of video lessons in the Introduction to Color Codes series and Introduction to Ozobot Blockly series forms the backbone of this instruction.

But what exactly do these Student Portfolios offer? Well, they’re more than just your average lesson plan from the Ozobot Classroom Lesson Library. Each lesson is broken down into manageable sections:

Getting Started:

Activate your students’ prior knowledge with an activity that introduces the topic of each chapter.

Time to Explore (video lesson):

This section guides students to the video instruction using a public URL accessible on any device with a web browser.

Check Your Understanding:

Fun activities like word searches, crossword puzzles, and more solidify the information from the previous video section.

Code Challenge:

Students get hands-on, creating their own programs incorporating the focus concepts of the lesson.

Debugging Challenge:

Problem-solving time! Students tackle various issues that may occur and learn to troubleshoot like pros.

Reflection Time:

The Ozobot Blockly Portfolios include questions for reflection after each lesson, allowing students to record their thoughts and feelings about their learning journey.

Benefits for Teachers:

• No more printing hassles: Many schools have limits on printing, but the Portfolios eliminate the need for copies.
• Neat and organized: Materials are bound, so no more loose activity sheets to keep track of.
• Time-saving prep: Your prep time shrinks to a fraction of what it would take to print and organize pages.
• In-depth study: Offers a deeper dive into each introductory topic.
• Flexible learning: Can be used for whole-class instruction or individual-paced learning.
• Pacing: Allows for a full semester of study with one-hour sessions once a week.
• Curriculum funding: Utilize a different funding pool than hardware costs.

Benefits for Students:

• Showcase learning: Provides a way for students to display what they’ve learned.
• All-in-one: All materials are conveniently in one place.
• Individual pace: Students can work at their own speed for deeper understanding.

Who is it for?

• Classroom teachers: Developmentally appropriate options for K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades.
• STEAM teachers: Perfect for those who want a dedicated Ozobot coding unit.
• After-school programs: Students can progress individually with all materials in hand. 

So, if you’re ready to master innovative classroom technology with Ozobot and make coding come alive in your classroom, the Introduction to Color Codes and Introduction to Ozobot Blockly Student Portfolios are your new best friend. Happy coding!

The post Bring Coding and Robotics to Your Classroom with Ozobot Curriculum appeared first on Ozobot.

We want to do our part to create space for you in the community and in education—a place where everyone should feel safe, welcome, and understood. Educators, we see you stepping up to help your students process these violent acts while you are hurting and feeling vulnerable yourselves. 

To the Broader Education Community:

We’re organizing a Twitter Chat on April 8th at 6 pm PT/9 pm ET to continue the conversation started by others about conveying the impact of racism on Asian & Asian-American peers, students, and society–specifically actionable steps that can be taken in the classroom. We know many educators want to be allies, but aren’t quite sure where to start.

After the Chat, we’ll update this post with ideas and resources that come out of it.

The post To Our Asian & Asian-American Community appeared first on Ozobot.

In spite of these burdens, both spoken and unspoken, Black educators continue to inspire students and their fellow teachers. We see evidence of this daily on Twitter, with some of our favorite pedagogical approaches, engagement strategies, activities, EdTech resources, and more.

Some have also chosen to share their experiences as Black educators. We know it is not their responsibility to do so, but are so appreciative of the ways they have shaped re-education and prioritization of equity in education.

So, here are 7 educators we’re following on Twitter who have shared amazing ideas for teaching, strategies for equity, more accurate views of history, and resources we can use to continue to learn.

1. Chris Emdin

Chris Emdin is a teacher, scholar, and the author of For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education. He provides actionable steps to be an effective educator in urban schools, and emphasizes the importance of believing in students.

2. Jessie Hagopian

Hagopian is an ethnic studies teacher. He wrote the book “Black Lives Matter at School,” and continues to share the reality of Black education and the importance of educational justice in schools.

3. Martin Odima, Jr.

Odima is a teacher coach that understands that to be an effective educator, one must  acknowledge inequity and oppression of Black students and educators.

4. Jornea Armant

Armant is a Head of Innovator Innovation and has a wealth of experience and information on Instructional Technology. She regularly posts newsletters, resources, and strategies for your “Teacher Tech Toolbox,” as she calls it

5. Yaritza Villalba

Educator and founder of non-profit YV Educational Resources Inc., Villalba is an expert on improving learning outcomes and shares a wealth of information to help other educators do the same. 

6. Amber Coleman-Mortley

Coleman-Mortley is an Edtech teacher that understands the importance of cultural competence, SEL, representation, and access. She recently posted her Black History Month Toolkit, which we plan on referencing throughout the year!

7. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi

We know that there is no American History without Black History. Dr. Kendi an historian, scholar, and author that shares his research to provide a more accurate view of history and help people understand what it means to be anti-racist. He was recently named by Time Magazine as one of the Top 100 Influential People of 2020!

Who are some of your favorite Black educators that you follow for teaching resources? We’d love to hear about them!

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